China Energy Outlook 2020 - Flipbook - Page 160
Abstract. China's industrial sector dominates the country's total energy consumption, and
improving energy efficiency in that sector is crucial to help China reach its energy and carbon
dioxide emissions reduction goals. There are many energy efficiency policies in China, but the
motivation and willingness of enterprises to improve energy efficiency has weakened. This
article first identifies barriers that enterprises face to be self-motivated to implement energy
efficiency measures and then categorizes these barriers into four categories: awareness,
information, technical capacity, and financial availability. It then reviews international policies
and programs to improve energy efficiency, and evaluates how these policies have helped to
address the barriers identified. We found that policies and programs in energy efficiency and
carbon reduction need to go hand in hand to incentivize companies, and that those policies and
programs send clearer signals and help change enterprises' decisions when they are persistent
but dynamic. Our specific policy recommendations to China fall under three key categories:
identification of energy efficiency potential, workforce development, and market channels for
energy efficiency financing.
Energy Production Issues
Zhou, N., Zhang, J., Khanna, N., Fridley, D., Jiang, S., and Liu, X. "Intertwined Impacts of Water,
Energy Development, and Carbon Emissions in China" Applied Energy 238 (2019) 78 - 91.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.12.085
Abstract. China is rapidly expanding its alternative and non-conventional energy production
capabilities. Although renewable electricity remains the focus, considerable investment has
supported construction of coal liquefaction and coal gasification facilities in the desert steppes
of north-central China, new coal mines in arid Inner Mongolia, and tight oil and gas extraction in
the Ordos to supplement limited domestic supplies of oil and gas. At the same time, China is
also facing severe drought and water scarcity in these same regions and in response has
expanded various water supply technologies such as desalination and wastewater treatment.
Recent government goals and measures for reducing energy and water consumption and
increasing efficiency introduced in national policies, however, are poorly or not coordinated,
resulting in contradictory objectives for which physical interlinkages are not well understood.
This research intends to provide insights for future energy-water nexus management decisions
in China, through systematic, comprehensive modeling of the water-energy nexus in China
based on comprehensive, bottom-up technology characterizations. Existing studies fail to
adequately characterize the details on specific technologies, nor do they comprehensively cover
all energy sectors, including energy conversion for non-energy products. We developed
integrated assessment (IA) capabilities to allow stakeholders to observe the tradeoffs between
various technology options and policy decisions and to test hypotheses/premises in a scenariodriven environment. The results of our analysis underscore the growing interconnection
between water and energy in China, the mixed trade-offs from developing low-carbon
technologies such as renewable energy and inland nuclear, and the importance of water-energy
nexus issues at the regional and local scales. This study lays the groundwork for an integrated
resource policy planning process in China and provides an assessment methodology and
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